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There's big news out of San Diego this week: Green Flash Brewing, cited by the Brewers Association as the 37th-largest brewery in the U.S., is pulling out of 32 states. The West Coast brewery just finished construction of a Virginia Beach location and was in a position that not many “mid-sized” breweries have accomplished ... they were in all 50 states.

Their West Coast-style IPAs are on many lists along with breweries like Oskar Blues, Stone Brewing, and Port Brewing, all of whom have faced similar growing pains in their attempts to be a nationwide brewery.

What this means for us:

In the immediate future, it means Green Flash and Alpine Brewing (owned by GF) will be at clearance prices in Massachusetts. At Provisions, we will have six packs of Alpine (normally upwards of $14.99) for $8.99! A Green Flash barrel-aged Belgian brew (Baroque Belgique) sits at $8.99 per bottle instead of $13.99.

In the future, we will have to get our fix for the West Coast IPAs in New York or Connecticut. The latter was initially on the cut-list, but it was announced Tuesday that Green Flash would stay in the Constitution state.

I can't help but think that this is going to be a trend in craft beer for years to come. Breweries that used to sell 4-5 cases a week at Provisions are now keeping their fingers crossed to move 4-5 cases in a month. We've also heard about breweries around the Northeast taking a step back to focus on their home market. Green Flash is just doing it on a large scale.